NICOSIA - (AFP) - At least 108 people have been killed in Iran's security crackdown more than three weeks ago against nationwide protests sparked by the death of young woman Mahsa Amini, according to the Oslo-based Organization for Human Rights in Iran.

Iranian security forces also killed at least 93 other people in separate clashes in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan Province (southeast), the organization added in a statement.

Iran has been witnessing protests since the death of a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman on September 16, three days after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for not adhering to the Islamic Republic's dress code.

Violence erupted in Zahedan on September 30 during angry protests over reports that a police chief in the region had raped a teenage girl.

And human rights organizations expressed concern on Tuesday about the extent of the repression in the city of Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan Province, the region from which Amini hails in western Iran.

"The international community must prevent further killings in Kurdistan by issuing an immediate response," Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam, director of the Organization for Human Rights in Iran, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The organization added that its investigation into the level of "repression" in Kurdistan was hampered by internet restrictions, and warned of "imminent bloody repression" of demonstrators in the province to the west.

And "the city of Sanandaj in Kurdistan province witnessed widespread protests and a bloody crackdown in the past three days," the organization said, adding that the death toll it announced did not include those killed during that period.

The Oslo-based organization said that it had so far recorded 28 deaths in Mazandaran Province, 14 in Kurdistan, 12 in Gilan and West Azerbaijan, and 11 in Tehran Province.

She confirmed that the Iranian security forces arrested many children who were demonstrating in the streets and in schools during the past week.

Amiri-Moqaddam said, "Children have the legal right to demonstrate, and the United Nations is obligated to defend the rights of children in Iran by putting pressure on the Islamic Republic."

The organization stated that its toll does not include six deaths that occurred, according to reports, during protests in the central city of Rasht in northern Iran on Sunday, stressing that it is continuing to investigate the case.
She said that workers joined strikes and demonstrations taking place in the country, at the Asalouyeh petrochemical facility (southwest Iran), Abadan (west) and Bushehr (south).